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I do not like those which attach with a rope, and for the reason that the lazy teamster can sit on the saddle-mule and lock and unlock, while, with the chain and lever, he must get off. In this way he relieves the saddle-mule's back. We all know that, in riding mules down steep or long hills, you do much to stiffen them up and wear them out.
This irritates the teamster, and he is compelled to run up and catch the wheel-mules by the head, to make them stop, so that he can lock his wheels. In nine cases out of ten he will waste time in punishing his animals for what they do not understand. He never thinks for a moment that the mule is accustomed to start up when the wagon ahead of him moves, and supposes he is doing his duty.
The teamster reined up, throwing his horses upon their haunches. Then, like a log, he fell headlong from his driving seat. Fyles turned with a bitter curse upon his lips for the criminal carelessness of his men. But he was given no time to vent it. A cry went up from the wagon's escort, and a hail of bullets rained upon the ambush.
"Guess they won't hear us." They rode out into the gray obscurity, losing the sound now and then. They had gone several leagues when they came to the edge of a dark bluff. Drawing bridle, they sat and listened, until the teamster broke the silence. "There's a trail runs through; we'll try it."
Here again Kit made a change in his employment. In Chihuahua he fell in with Mr. Robert McKnight. To him he hired out as a teamster, and in this capacity went to the copper mines which are found near to the Rio Gila. Amid the weary necessities of this humble but honorable calling, Kit's heart was constantly alive with ambition to become a hunter and trapper.
"Somebody's left a dog outside," said a teamster, and rose to let him in. He opened the door only to retreat affrightedly. "My God!" he said. "My God!" and the miners crowded forward. A figure tottered over the portal, swaying drunkenly. They shuddered at the sight of its face as it crossed toward the fire.
Jest bekase you've bin a Lieutenant-Colonel and me only a teamster you've played the high and mighty with me. I'm jest as good as you are any day. I wouldn't give a howl in the infernal regions for your promises. You come down now with $100 in greenbacks and I'll go along and help you all I kin. If you don't "
He had worked as teamster and had bought and sold anything to anybody right and left. Resolutely he had kept himself from all part in the feud his kinship with the Hawns protecting him on one side and the many trades with old Aaron Honeycutt in cattle and lands saving him from trouble on the other.
Lower Van Ness Avenue was even more torn and lumpy than where she had crossed it at California Street, and hundreds of the South of Market Street refugees were sitting or lying in the middle of the street, worn out but stolid. Just beyond, she caught up with a teamster, who, noticing the fatigue in her eyes, stopped his horses and offered her a "lift," provided she was "going his way."
For months no violation of the agreement was reported. But one day a teamster, with the foul tongue associated with their calling and mule-driving, as he drove his team through a longer and deeper series of mud-puddles than ever before, unable to restrain himself, turned himself inside out as a vocal Vesuvius.
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